8 Towns and the Great Marsh Summary – March 4/14/12
By James Nutter
On Monday March 19th, Eight Towns and the Great Marsh met at Ipswich Town Hall from 7 to 9 p.m. First on the agenda was the Great Marsh Revitalization Task Force, and a PowerPoint was presented in order to explain its actions and purpose. In this group, which is aimed towards restoring the Great Marsh, is a Resource and Research Committee led by state senators Bruce Tarr and Steve Baddour. They have been leading mapping of phragmites in the Great Marsh, specifically in the Plum Island area.
A Circulation and Sedimentation subcommittee of the GMRTF has been assigned the job of figuring out how the Merrimack River is influencing the spread of phragmites, mapping phragmites, and looking at ways to monitor and treat existing phragmites. The Permitting Committee has been determining whether or not existing procedures to fight invasive phragmites have been successful and safe, figuring out who the authorized entities are for some of the land, and acquiring permission from landowners to map and treat the invasive species. It was noted that the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge could help with this as they have more power, and public outreach is needed to promote this cause.
After this we were informed that an act put forth by the EPA recently made it necessary to obtain a permit in order to discharge residue-leaving pesticides. This applies to the Merrimack River, making it a challenge to spray phragmites along it. An Education and Outreach Committee needs to focus their outreach on getting permission from property owners, and ways to do this could include roadside signs, flyers, or news articles.
Extremely important to this effort is the Funding Committee, dealing with getting herbicide treatment, mapping, research, and outreach sufficiently funded. The future of the task force includes continued mapping, developing a hydrodynamic model of the Merrimack River estuary to understand flushing dynamics that affect salinity and phragmite growth, and identifying funding sources.
Following the lengthy report on the Great Marsh Revitalization Task Force, the members discussed identifying the traditional and sustainable uses of the Great Marsh, important to justifying its importance. Off the top of our heads, we decided that cranberries, salt marsh hay, beach plum, oysters, herring, eel fisheries, and smelt were some significant uses. Now we need only to locate where these resources are and to figure out what to do with the information. Members will research traditional and sustainable uses of the Great Marsh for the next meeting.
Then we agreed on 8TGM as the acronym of 8 Towns and the Great Marsh. Improving the website for 8TGM will be on next month’s agenda.